Archive for August, 2006

The war in Lebanon was a bungle, they say, and many believe their tattered nation can withstand the ravages of new elections better than it can any more of Olmert’s leadership.

Ehud Olmert’s first 139 days in office have been rough. But the days to come will only get rougher, as angry Israelis call for his resignation.

“It’s time to say goodbye,” read a headline in Maariv, generally a pro-government Israeli paper. Three out of four Israelis are dissatisfied with Olmert’s leadership, says a poll published in the daily Yediot Aharonot—and fully 63 percent of Israelis want him gone. Seventy-four percent say the same of his defense minister, Amir Peretz. Public protests against the government are picking up numbers, as well as some high-profile attendees.

The New York Times reported that a collection of reservist soldiers protested over Olmert’s bungling of the war against Hezbollah, demanding his resignation as well as that of Peretz and the army chief of staff, Lt. Gen. Dan Halutz. They complained at having been sent to war with poor training, “unclear missions, inadequate supplies, outdated equipment and a lack of basics, like drinking water” (August 21). “The protest reflects considerable domestic angst about the uncertain outcome of the war, the fragility of a cease-fire, general skepticism about the ability of any United Nations force to control Hezbollah and the failure to reach stated goals, like the release of captured soldiers.”

The Times story also documented a number of other protests: Reserve soldiers have directly confronted officers; one group has erected protest tents in front of the prime minister’s office and the Supreme Court; several hundred reservists printed an open letter in newspapers listing their gripes and calling for a formal investigation of the failures in leadership. Despite strong misgivings, on Monday Olmert relented and agreed to a limited governmental inquiry conducted by a former Mossad chief—a move considerably less than what his detractors are demanding of him and sure to leave them unappeased.

“The crisis is so serious that the government seems doomed in the long-term,” political science professor Shlomo Avineri was quoted by Agence France Presse as saying.

If Israelis boot Olmert, the man they select to succeed him would be the country’s seventh prime minister in 11 years. (Imagine if the American president had an 18-month term; it is excruciating enough having to survive a divisive, blood-boiling presidential election every four years.) The political chaos that number represents becomes more apparent when one looks at the spectrum of political thinking it embodies—the leftish rule of Rabin and (briefly, after Rabin’s assassination) Peres supplanted by the hawkish Netanyahu; the catastrophic administration of Barak cut short by resignation; the war general Sharon, facing the pressure of an intifada throughout his reign, swinging over a five-year span from assassinating terrorist leaders to gifting territory to terrorist leaders. Quite a wild political ride to unfold over a mere decade.

Perhaps voters were shell-shocked, then, when Sharon went comatose in January. Only 1 in 10 people in the country voted for the party he left behind—but since the next most popular party only pulled in 1 out of 14, it was good enough to make Ehud Olmert prime minister.

Olmert campaigned on a promise to extract his countrymen from the West Bank and give their land to the Palestinians, who are now governed by the terrorist group Hamas. This unilateral retreat was probably a job Olmert could have pulled off. Waging war, on the other hand, wasn’t so clearly his area of expertise. This has become painfully apparent just 139 days into his administration.

Thus, Israel is staring at two options. The first is to stick it out with a prime minister whose feeble domestic support has been trashed, and international reputation riddled with Katyusha-sized holes. The second is to brave the howling winds of uncertainty that new elections would bring.

Nowhere on Earth has a governmental system produced such a headache-inducing cacophony of competing parties and interests as Israel’s has—an artifact of a population remarkably disparate and religion-based. The current Knesset has representatives from no less than 12 political parties—parties so diverse that they will not convene on Friday, Saturday or Sunday in deference to their Muslim, Jewish and Christian members.

Events of the past year, culminating in the war against Hezbollah, have widened the political fault lines in this entity even more, making the coalition-building required of an Israeli prime minister even more difficult. And looking at the political field absent Ariel Sharon—whose legendary status enabled him to somehow keep his ship afloat even in treacherous, uncharted waters—there is nothing close to a consensus candidate who could take Olmert’s place with any kind of mandate to speak of.

So, what happens now?

What are the consequences for poor leadership that invites foreign attack and exacerbates an already poisonous and fractious political climate? How will Israel conduct itself in the drastically altered postwar environment among enemy nations that personally witnessed Israel lose its aura of invincibility? To whom will Israel turn for solutions?

What will happen when—as Israelis lock horns over these questions—Hezbollah, or Syria, or Iran, or Hamas, or any one of the several other terrorist groups camped out on Israel’s own soil, decides that the cease-fire has been nice, but it’s served its purpose; time to fire up the blast furnace of war for another day? Will a strong leader suddenly leap center stage, rally the people, the politicians and the generals, and help Israel to start behaving like a country that actually wants to survive?

Gathering nuclear storm

By Arnaud de Borchgrave
August 29, 2006
Just days before the United Nations Security Council deadline for Iran to cease and desist enriching uranium, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad gave the West the Iranian bird. By inaugurating a “heavy-water” reactor, Iran instantly doubled its chances of acquiring nuclear weapons. Adding insult to injury, the military mullahs test-fired a new long-range missile — the Thaqeb, or Saturn, a submarine-to-surface weapon.
The new reactor runs on natural uranium mined by Iran and skips the difficult enrichment phase to produce plutonium, which gives nukes the power to obliterate entire cities. Of course, all these efforts, says Iran’s president, is to treat and diagnose AIDS and cancer patients. And — we almost forgot — to generate more power to improve agriculture. The fact Iran has sufficient oil reserves to generate electric power for generations to come is conveniently overlooked.
Iran is now confident neither Russia nor China will go along with meaningful economic sanctions. Moscow says sanctions have never worked, ignoring those that collapsed South Africa’s apartheid regime. The handwriting on the geopolitical landscape has convinced Israel and its core support in the U.S., from the neoconservatives to the Christian Right, that a military solution is inescapable.
Leading conservatives have said World War III — the ultimate clash of civilizations — has been under way since September 11, 2001. Some neocons say it started when the mullahs forced the shah into exile and seized power in Iran in early 1979 — and that President Bush and Britain’s Prime Minister Tony Blair are treading water among the appeasers. They remind Mr. Bush he vowed not to leave office without first ensuring that “the worst weapons will not fall into the worst hands” and thus Iran cannot become a nuclear power. Their ideological guide Richard Perle goes so far as to accuse Mr. Bush, who knows Iran has pursued a secret nuclear weapons program for the last 19 years, of opting for “ignominious retreat.”
Overlooked in this calculus is Mr. Bush’s burden of two wars, Afghanistan and Iraq, and a much-diminished U.S. military. A third front against Iran, an ancient civilization of 70 million with global retaliatory capabilities (e.g., Hezbollah), is a frightening prospect that conjures up the nightmare of a return to the draft.
Mr. Bush believes deeply that Iran poses an existential threat to close ally Israel. Congress recently voted a resolution that said an attack on Israel is an attack on the United States. Mr. Bush also believes Iran is determined to sabotage American hopes of establishing a new democratic Middle East.
In Iraq, clandestine Iranian aid, from sophisticated “Improvised Explosive Devices” to funds and weapons to the two main Shi’ite militias, may be designed to maneuver the U.S. into a humiliating, Vietnamlike withdrawal from Iraq.
Given Mr. Bush’s overarching dedication to “winning the Global War on Terrorism,” said one former senior intelligence analyst, the neutralization of Iran has become a sine qua non, “equal if not higher on his list of priorities than ‘victory’ in Iraq, another impossibility that he is unwilling to recognize, even privately, much less acknowledge publicly.”
Mr. Bush’s national security advisers have also pointed out that an escalating danger of U.S.-Iran military confrontation automatically intensifies internal and regional opposition to U.S. objectives in Iraq. The president keeps reminding private interlocutors to think of how history will judge this critical period 15 to 20 years hence. He sees personal and national humiliation if he were to leave office having acquiesced to an embryonic Iranian nuclear arsenal.
So odds makers bet sometime before the end of his second term President Bush will order a massive air attack on a wide range of carefully selected targets in Iran, in partnership with Israel, and against the advice of many of his advisers. Mr. Bush is convinced a nuclear Iran would pose an intolerable threat to U.S. national security and, as one former intelligence topsider put it, “he is firm in his faith that God agrees with him on that point, and certain that history will eventually recognize and properly appreciate his courageous and visionary leadership.”
This raises the question of congressional approval. As George Will said to CBS’ George Stephanopoulos two Sundays ago, when was the last time this president ever worried about getting approval in advance from the Congress or the public?
In any event, Israel is not taking any chances. Deputy Prime Minister Shimon Peres said last week Israel would not be the first to attack Iran. Other Israeli voices say Israel will have to do just that. Israel recently added a new command to the IDF — the “Iran Command.” Its new commander is Maj. Gen. Elyezer Shkedy, Israel’s Air Force chief. He is responsible for all conflicts with countries “not bordering Israel.” The Jewish state’s strategic thinkers and military planners take the diminutive Mr. Ahmadinejad at his word when he says Israel must be “wiped off the map.”
Most worrisome for Israel is Hezbollah’s recent military performance against the Israeli Defense Force in Lebanon. The perception is this Iranian surrogate resisted and repelled a mighty foe. The reality is Iran’s new-mown conviction Israel can be defeated. So Israel will now have to prove, yet again, that it cannot.

Arnaud de Borchgrave is editor at large of The Washington Times and of United Press International.

IMI Tavor assault rifle has been selected as the future weapon for Israel Defense Forces infantry units. For several years the IDF evaluated the Tavor against the M-16 M4. The two weapons recently completed extensive field evaluations with special forces as well elite infantry units, such as the Givati Brigade. Following the conclusion of these tests, the IDF made its decision. The evaluations were very positive and overall, Tavor proved to be significantly more accurate and reliable compared to the M4, and became the favorable sidearm by the majority of the infantrymen participated in the tests. The weapon proved to be more comfortable to operate, and more accurate in instinctive fire, as the natural carrying position – an inherent advantage of the rear center of gravity, derived by the compact bull-pup design. Due to budget constraints and large quantities of M-16 and M-16A2 which are already in its inventory, the IDF is expected to order only thousands of rifles per year, however, according to IMI, the importance of the decision is the recognition in the quality and superiority of the new Israeli weapon, to promote export sales. The IDF selected Tavor with an optical reflection sight, the initial batch will be equipped with the ITL battery powered MARS, but follow-on batches could be equipped with either the passive, non-powered Mepro-21 Rexfelx sight, produced by Meprolight or the ITL MARS. IMI believes that Tavor will soon take its place as a leading brand in the world market, similar to the ubiquitous Uzi, IMI produced in the 1950s. India became the second country to order Tavor. The new assault rifle will equip paratroops and special forces of the Indian Army. The Indian version will be equipped with the ITL MARS optical reflection sight. On September 2004 Georgia became the third country to select the Tavor, which will be used by special operations units.

Disgraced Pakistani nuclear scientist, Abdul Qadeer Khan is suffering from prostate cancer, the government says.
He was diganosed following a routine medical check up in early August.

The scientist who confessed to leaking nuclear secrets to Libya, Iran and North Korea has been kept under virtual house arrest since 2004.

He is regarded as a national hero by many in Pakistan. President Musharraf pardoned him and denied international investigators access for questioning.

‘Best care’

An official statement said further tests on Dr Khan were being conducted by a team of doctors. It did not say how serious his condition is, or if he requires an urgent operation.

“Since the state of health of Dr AQ Khan is of public interest, the government of Pakistan would like to hold out an assurance that the best specialist medical care is being provided to Dr AQ Khan in consultation with his family and personal doctors,” the statement from the Ministry of Information said.

“The public will be kept informed from time to time whenever necessary.”

Dr Khan has lived in a diplomatic suburb of Islamabad since his televised confession in 2004, in which he admitted nuclear secrets.

Many Pakistanis appreciate his role in developing the country’s nuclear arsenal and helping to counter the threat from their nuclear neighbour, India.

The United States and many other countries believe Dr Khan was a rogue nuclear scientist, who used his position to set up an international proliferation network.

President Musharraf denies that Pakistani authorities were ever aware of or involved in Dr Khan’s activities, and Pakistani officials say the proliferation network has been completely dismantled.

But a senior US official recently said many questions about the exact nature of the network remained unanswered as there had been no direct access to Dr Khan.

‘Rules’ of war limit Marines

We call it “the war in Iraq.” But to many of the Marines here, it’s not really a war – at least not on their side.

“They are fighting a war,” a Marine from 3rd Battalion, 3rd Marine Regiment tells me – “they” meaning the insurgents lurking “outside the wire” of a Marine forward operating base in the Euphrates River town of Barwanah, in western Al Anbar province.

The young Marine is right. While the insurgents here and throughout Iraq battle American Marines and soldiers with deadly weapons of warfare – IEDs (“improvised explosive devices,” or roadside bombs), sniper attacks, mortars, two of which exploded near this forward operating base just the day before – the Marines have to respond under “rules of engagement,” or “ROEs,” that would be familiar to any cop in America.

Are the Marines catching sniper rounds from a cluster of buildings in the city? In a conventional war, that would be reason enough to light up the buildings with suppressive fire.

But under the Iraq ROEs, unless the Marines get “P.I.D.” or “positive identification” – eyes on a guy with a rifle, or a muzzle flash, something very localized and specific – they can’t fire back.

Do the Marines see four young males fleeing the scene of an IED attack? The Marines can try to chase them down in vehicles or on foot – this while the Marines are carrying 60 or 70 pounds of equipment on their backs – but they can’t even fire warning shots from their M-16s, much less lethal ones, to try to make them stop.

Under the rules, if the suspects are running away, if they pose no direct and immediate threat to the Marines, the most the Marines can do is shoot “pyro,” small flares, as a warning – a warning that Marines believe simply leaves the fleeing enemy laughing.

And so on. By tradition and temperament, a Marine infantry company is a blunt instrument, designed to storm a beach or take a building with force and violence that overwhelms the enemy; it’s a hammer, not a scalpel.

But in the confusing world of urban counterinsurgency warfare, Marine infantrymen here find themselves bound by rules that often seem more appropriate to the streets of an American city than to an actual combat zone.

True, in the rare event of an all-out firefight, a direct confrontation with the enemy, the rules change. When faced with a conventional attack by insurgents, Marines can respond conventionally, with overwhelming firepower.

But in routine, day-to-day operations, every single shot fired by Marines here must be documented and reviewed by higher command.

Let me repeat that: Every single shot fired by Marines is reported to and reviewed by higher command – regimental level or above – to make sure that it conformed to the ROEs.

The rules are unquestionably well-intentioned, and in the long and bloody annals of warfare, almost uniquely American.

They are designed to minimize Iraqi civilian casualties – and in a conflict that is as much or more political as it is military, at the upper levels of command perhaps the rules make sense.

But to the grunts on the ground, where the wounding and dying is, they are a source of endless frustration.

“Seems like you can’t even spit around here without getting investigated,” says one young Marine – although of course he didn’t actually say “spit.”

Even senior Marine officers, whose job it is to see the big picture, and to enforce the rules of engagement established by higher command, understand only too well how hard it is for a 19- or 20-year-old lance corporal to be shot at or IED’d day after day and not be able to shoot back at enemies who hide behind and among civilians.

“It’s a tough, tough thing for them,” says 3/3 battalion commander Lt. Col. Norm Cooling. “I always tell them (the junior Marines) that fighting a counterinsurgency is a lot harder, mentally, intellectually and spiritually, than fighting a conventional war. … The (insurgents) know that they can play by a different set of rules than we can, and they take advantage of it.”

It wasn’t always that way. Young Marines on their first tour in Iraq are often astonished – and even a little envious – when I tell them about being with a Marine infantry company in OIF I (Operation Iraqi Freedom I), the initial march up to Baghdad in the spring of 2003. There were rules of engagement then, too, but it was also an actual war – and the basic, unwritten rule of engagement was that for every enemy round that came in, the Marines would send a thousand rounds back.

Did that sometimes cause Iraqi civilian casualties? Yes, unavoidably. But it also saved American lives – and you could argue that in the long run it saved Iraqi lives as well, because it left the enemy either intimidated or dead, and shortened the initial conflict.

But no longer. The Marines here know they are under close scrutiny – by the press, by the politicians and by the often fickle American public. And that knowledge permeates almost everything they do.

For example, I sat in with Marine officers and NCOs planning a night raid to capture a sniper who had been taking potshots at Marines in Barwanah. Aware that a reporter was present, and not sure how their comments might be interpreted, some of the Marines were careful to describe the sniper not as simply “the sniper,” but as “the alleged sniper.”

These are tough, brave men, American warriors. But sitting in that briefing room, it was almost as if the Marines saw the ghost of Johnnie Cochran hovering in the corner, just waiting to sue them for violating the sniper’s – that is, the alleged sniper’s – civil rights.

Still, while the Marines may gripe about the ROEs, they are Marines – which means they also obey them. Anyone who thinks American troops are running wild in Iraq, recklessly shooting at anything that moves, has probably never been to Iraq. For every charge of excessive force by American troops, such as the allegations about the killings of civilians in Haditha, there are hundreds of unreported and unheralded examples of American Marines and soldiers showing astonishing restraint in their use of force.

Again, in counterinsurgency warfare, where battle is waged not only in the streets but in hearts and minds and TV news broadcasts, perhaps that is sound policy. If the goal is to win over the people, and not just to kill the enemy, perhaps there is no alternative.

But no one should doubt that American Marines and soldiers are paying for their restraint, and for the American concern about civilian casualties.

They are paying for it in blood – their own blood.

The day after I spoke with those Marines in Barwanah, an IED hit a Marine 7-ton truck that was on patrol in the town, fortunately causing only minor injuries, and insurgent mortar rounds again landed near the Marines’ forward operating base.

The enemy was continuing to wage war.

And the Marines were continuing their police action.

CONTACT US: Gordon Dillow has been a Register columnist for 10 years. A graduate of the University of Montana journalism school, he served as a U.S. Army sergeant in Vietnam in 1971-72. Contact him at 714-796-7953 or at GLDillow@aol.com

There can never be a negotiated peace unless there is a defined loser as in WW II when Germany and Italy and Japan surrendered unconditionally.

We had leaders then that fought to win at all costs. We no longer have any Winston Churchills or General Pattons or Presidents like Harry Truman, The list is endless such as General McArthur and General Bradley, sadly the Teddy Roosevelts are long gone.

Our current leaders in both parties are too busy with their personal agendas and its you and me that will eventuall pay the real price. The rich get richer and the poor get poorer.

Israel has been taken over by inferior leaders that have sold their people out, I have a lot of family over there and the major war has not even started yet. The Bible tells it all if you would bother to read it.

In Isaiah Chapter 17, verse 1 it says that Damascus wil be a ruinus heap and will ceast to exist. This has never happened yet but it will. There are so many things I could quote from the Scriptures that are coming very soon but most people do not care.

The average American is only concerned about what will he or she do tonight, what DVD will they watch or where will they go for dinner or what ever. We have bred a nation of Fools. I have no answers as this trend has been started so many years ago it will take an acute attack on us again for people to recognize that there is no way out of what is coming.

We are spread too thin as a military force to handle much more, its all coming to a head. We have some very fine dedicated soldiers and they like all soldiers are trained to kill, but the politicians do not back them up. I am not going to go into real deatail but just check out all the soldiers that are being falsely accused for war crimes and being held in San Diego, Ca.

This problem with IRAN and SYRIA will not go away, they want us all dead. You will either fight them now or you will fight them later. Its your choice. It will be easier now before they get nukes that can be delivered thousands of miles.

I have lived in the best of times, but those days are long gone. We are known to cut and run through out the world because of our previous leadership. Most of Islam does not respect us as a nation of fighters, instead they all think we are a paper tiger. ARE THEY RIGHT ?? I will let you answer that question.

The American people are the best equipped army with excellent small arms of the world. When and not if they attack us they will have a terrible price to pay from the American people that are still Patriots in defense of our liberty and the protection of the constitution of the United States.

We should have closed our borders 20 or 30 or 40 years ago, now its too late because our enemies are here and they already, in my opinion only have their weapons here to be used against us.

I could go on and on and on but its of no use because not many of you want to listen to reality. If you do not own a firearm you will become a victim, its as simple as that. There is no reason to tell anyone what you have in order for your very survival. JUST GO AHEAD AND GET YOUR SUPPLIES NOW.

As the Israeli people waited Thursday for Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to implement his cabinet’s decision to widen the ground offensive in Lebanon, Britain found itself under siege. British security officials announced that the entire country was on a red alert for a terror attack. The night before, British security forces foiled a terrorist conspiracy to explode some ten US bound passenger jets.

As London’s deputy police commissioner Paul Stephenson told reporters, ”This was intended to be mass murder on an unimaginable scale.” By Thursday morning security forces had arrested some 21 suspects. All are British citizens. All are Muslims.

It is not a stretch of the imagination to assume that these British Muslims are jihadists. Indeed, it can probably be assumed that like their predecessors last July 7, they made their decision to commit an unspeakable atrocity against their countrymen to advance Islam’s takeover of Britain.

The path of jihad is the path of terror. Using terror, the jihadists believe that they can destroy the confidence of citizens of free societies and so coerce them to bend to their will.

In his letter to US President George W. Bush last May, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad enunciated the coercive goal of jihad when he threatened the US with war unless Bush converts to Islam. Iran, which today leads the global jihad, has managed to make the language of jihad the lingua franca of the Muslim world.

Many have noted that Hizbullah’s initial attack against Israel on July 12 was highly convenient for Teheran. Distracted by the war in Israel and Lebanon, the G-8 and the UN Security Council put off their discussions of Iran’s nuclear weapons program, which were scheduled to take place that week.

While the actual date of the attack is easily explained, the question still arises, why is the jihad picking up steam now? Why are fanatical Muslims on the march this summer?

It would seem that the answer to this question is found in the increased cultural weakness of the two states leading the war against radical Islam: the US and Britain. In both countries, for the past two years the forces of leftist radicalism and appeasement have been on the rise. Both countries’ leaders are hated by ever larger swathes of their countrymen for their stand on the war against jihad. And so they waver.

On Tuesday, Britain’s Home Secretary John Reid discussed the twin dangers of jihad and Western cultural weakness. Reid argued that Islamic terrorism has placed Britain in its greatest peril since the end of World War II. Reid proceeded to utter a stinging indictment of the British judiciary for preferring the “human rights” of terror suspects to the right of British citizens to security. Just last week, the British High Court ruled that security forces had to loosen restrictions they had placed on six Iraqis suspected of links of terrorism.

Tuesday also saw the defeat of Connecticut Senator Joe Lieberman in the primary elections for the Democratic nomination to the Senate. He was beaten by wealthy businessman Ned Lamont who based his entire campaign on attacking Lieberman for his support for the war in Iraq. The months long primary campaign against Lieberman was replete with venomous anti-Semitic attacks against Lieberman, his family, American Jews and Israel by Lamont supporters.

Lieberman’s defeat by an “anti-war” candidate is a clear sign that the Democratic Party is morphing into a radical leftist party. If this trend is not reversed, America’s political climate will likely become much less sympathetic and supportive of Israel and much more supportive of countries like France, Egypt and Saudi Arabia. A deterioration of the position of American Jews is also liable to ensue.

Under attack domestically, both Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair have less time and ability to rally their nations to fight against the forces of global jihad. Moreover, as a result of its own culture wars, Israel today finds itself led by the weakest government it has ever had. The weakness of all three governments presented Iran with an unmistakable opportunity to strike.

While Bush and Blair’s weakness is the result of political forces, Olmert’s weakness is inherent. He is a dilettante and a dandy, not a leader. Yet, today, the ability of both Blair and Bush to convince their nations to support their war efforts against forces committed to the destruction of their nations’ ways of life is dependent on Olmert’s ability to lead Israel to victory in the war against Hizbullah.

With a quarter of our population under attack, our cities and forest in flames and our economy surging towards recession and debt, most Israelis agree that the war we face is a war for our national survival. In that sense, it is not all that different from previous wars.

Yet there is a qualitative difference between the current war and wars of previous generations. In the past, our enemies were states. They wished to conquer Israel and take our land for themselves. Today our enemies do not wish to conquer Israel. They wish to destroy Israel as a stepping stone on their path towards global domination. An Israeli victory or defeat in the current war will influence not only Israel’s future. It will influence the future of the free world as a whole. If Israel is defeated, if we do not fight to victory over Hizbullah, the march of jihad will move forward with unprecedented force.

Not surprisingly, Olmert hesitates as he faces this challenge. His nation tells him to choose victory. His instincts tell him to seek the path of least resistance.

If Olmert allows the IDF to fight, if he orders the implementation of the security cabinet’s decision to widen the ground offensive to the Litani River and so enable us to vanquish Hizbullah, we will be able to change the face of the region and of the world as a whole.

A clear Israel victory against Hizbullah that destroys Hizbullah as a fighting force would enable leaders like Bush and Blair to defend their decision to wage war against jihad. Quite simply, an Israeli victory will help them inspire their nations to believe that they can win this war as well.

Since his ascension to power last year, Ahmadinejad has been on one long winning streak. US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice’s success in convincing Bush to open direct negotiations with Teheran regarding its nuclear weapons program was a huge victory for Ahmadinejad. And nothing breeds success like success. Because he has yet to fail, the Iranian leader enjoys an aura of invincibility that deters other leaders from challenging his power. An Israeli victory against the Iranian military’s advance guard would shatter that aura and facilitate a much more robust Anglo-American stand against Teheran and its client Syria.

As well, events in Iraq will be critically influenced by how Israel comes out of this war. On the one hand, an Israeli defeat is liable to foment a violent Shiite revolt led by Nasrallah’s underling Muqtada al Sadr and his terror squads. On the other hand, an Israeli victory will galvanize the moderate Shiite forces in Iraq that are working to stabilize their country.

Finally, an Israeli victory will put paid the fiction which claims that Israel is a strategic liability for to West. The forces who call for Israel’s abandonment and a US “engagement” of the Syrians and Iranians will be exposed as fools.

But the option of defeat has an allure of its own. Defeat, or as Olmert might put it, “bowing to international pressure” has the advantage of being the path of least resistance. Unfortunately for Israel, if Olmert surrenders to his nature and opts for capitulation, the result will be catastrophic.

If, as Rice, Shimon Peres (and Olmert himself) recommend, Israel holds its fire and waits for a multinational force to deploy along the border, Israel will lose its right to self-defense. The laws of political gravity dictate that a relinquishment of the right to self defense is tantamount to a surrender of sovereignty. If Olmert decides that he would rather have foreigners patrol our borders than the IDF, his message to the world will be clear: As far as he is concerned, Israel does not value its liberty because it is unwilling to make the necessary sacrifices to defend it.

If Olmert truly wants for foreign forces to be stationed in south Lebanon, he can do us all a favor and agree to Hizbullah’s demand to keep UNIFIL in place. At least UNIFIL, for all its fecklessness, is more or less harmless. It is not empowered to limit Israel’s right to defend itself.

If Olmert decides to surrender to outside pressures, he will be serving the interests of the forces in Washington who claim that Israel is not worthy of America’s support. An Israel that is unwilling to contend with Hizbullah is an Israel that cannot be trusted as an ally. That is, if he goes along with Rice and her colleagues at the UN and agrees not to fight to win, Olmert will be paving the way for the defeat of pro-Israel forces in US policymaking circles and politics.

The fact of the matter is that those who push for Israel’s abandonment are the same people who push for a US-British retreat from Iraq and an end to their war against radical Islam. If Israel capitulates and so strengthens the powers who oppose it in the US and throughout the West, it will similarly contribute to the political defeat of the political forces that call for the jihad to be defeated. So in a very profound sense, as goes Kiryat Shemona, so go Washington and London.

Today Israel is gripped by dread. There is not a household in the country that is not directly impacted by this war. All of us have family and friends in the North and in the IDF. All of us are concerned about the future of our country.

It would be nice to think that there is some shortcut that we could take to secure our country and our freedom on the cheap. It is the natural tendency of men like Olmert to look for such a shortcut.

But there are no shortcuts in this war, this existential war that in many respects we brought on ourselves by attempting to disengage from the reality of our surroundings.

At the cabinet meeting on Wednesday, Olmert demanded that his ministers behave like grown-ups because “the whole nation is watching us now.” This is true. We are watching. And at this time, it is up to our nation to force our leaders to lead us to victory.

Leave Damascus now! Avoid Tel-Aviv!

There is a very, very high probability that biblical prophecies about the complete destruction of Damascus, the capital city of Syria, will be fulfilled on August 3rd 2006 in consequence of the present war between Israel and hezbollah in Lebanon and northern towns in Israel.

On July 3rd, 10 days before the war in Lebanon started, because hezbollah attacked israeli soldiers and kidnapped two of them, I wrote an article about Bible codes and the crisis in Gaza because of the kidnapping of Gilead Shalit, an israeli army corporal, and the killing and wounding of other Israeli soldiers.

As you know, that crisis, with no solution yet, paved the way to the attack by hezbollah, with the purpose of forcing Israel to open a second front in Lebanon in order to be entangled in a very serious military conflict.

“1 The burden of Damascus. Behold, Damascus is taken away from being a city, and it shall be a ruinous heap.
2 The cities of Aroer are forsaken; they shall be for flocks, which shall lie down, and none shall make them afraid.
3 And the fortress shall cease from Ephraim, and the kingdom from Damascus, and the remnant of Syria; they shall be as the glory of the children of Israel, saith Jehovah of hosts.
4 And it shall come to pass in that day, that the glory of Jacob shall be made thin, and the fatness of his flesh shall wax lean.
5 And it shall be as when the harvestman gathereth the standing grain, and his arm reapeth the ears; yea, it shall be as when one gleaneth ears in the valley of Rephaim.
6 Yet there shall be left therein gleanings, as the shaking of an olive-tree, two or three berries in the top of the uppermost bough, four or five in the outmost branches of a fruitful tree, saith Jehovah, the God of Israel.
7 In that day shall men look unto their Maker, and their eyes shall have respect to the Holy One of Israel.
8 And they shall not look to the altars, the work of their hands; neither shall they have respect to that which their fingers have made, either the Asherim, or the sun-images.
9 In that day shall their strong cities be as the forsaken places in the wood and on the mountain top, which were forsaken from before the children of Israel; and it shall be a desolation.
10 For thou hast forgotten the God of thy salvation, and hast not been mindful of the rock of thy strength; therefore thou plantest pleasant plants, and settest it with strange slips.
11 In the day of thy planting thou hedgest it in, and in the morning thou makest thy seed to blossom; but the harvest fleeth away in the day of grief and of desperate sorrow.
12 Ah, the uproar of many peoples, that roar like the roaring of the seas; and the rushing of nations, that rush like the rushing of mighty waters!
13 The nations shall rush like the rushing of many waters: but he shall rebuke them, and they shall flee far off, and shall be chased as the chaff of the mountains before the wind, and like the whirling dust before the storm.
14 At eventide, behold, terror; and before the morning they are not. This is the portion of them that despoil us, and the lot of them that rob us.”

Isaiah 17

Damascus will no longer be a city. It won’t be like Beirut which is damaged because of the bombings but is still a city.

Now let’s see the last verse. Damascus is destroyed because Israel is attacked ( despoiled, robbed).

A day will come when Israel suffers a major attack that causes widespread terror and before the morning of the next day Israel’s vengeance will take place.

That attack is almost certain to be an attack on Tel Aviv that will kill thousands of people, probably with chemical and/or biological weapons.

The last verse also seems to indicate that the attack on Israel occurs the day before Damascus is destroyed.

It seems that there is terror in Israel and before the next morning they are not. In case Israel was attacked with chemical and/or biological weapons it’s almost assured that Israel’s military response to that attack would come the day after.

If this interpretation is correct and if the destruction of Damascus happens on August 3rd 2006, than it will happen before 6 a.m. local time (Damascus and Israel), August 2nd 11 p.m. EDT, 8 p.m. PDT.

Doing it during the night Israel would/will prevent the world from having clear images of the very moment of the destruction of Damascus and it’s immediate aftermath.

This would/will prevent world condemnation from being even stronger as well as people taking clear pictures of a mushroom cloud in case it was/is an attack with one or more nuclear weapons.

“3 Thus saith Jehovah: For three transgressions of Damascus, yea, for four, I will not turn away the punishment thereof; because they have threshed Gilead with threshing instruments of iron:
4 but I will send a fire into the house of Hazael, and it shall devour the palaces of Ben-hadad.
5 And I will break the bar of Damascus, and cut off the inhabitant from the valley of Aven, and him that holdeth the sceptre from the house of Eden; and the people of Syria shall go into captivity unto Kir, saith Jehovah.
6 Thus saith Jehovah: For three transgressions of Gaza, yea, for four, I will not turn away the punishment thereof; because they carried away captive the whole people, to deliver them up to Edom:
7 but I will send a fire on the wall of Gaza, and it shall devour the palaces thereof.”
8And I will cut off the inhabitant from Ashdod, and him that holdeth the sceptre from Ashkelon; and I will turn my hand against Ekron; and the remnant of the Philistines shall perish, saith the Lord Jehovah.
9Thus saith Jehovah: For three transgressions of Tyre, yea, for four, I will not turn away the punishment thereof; because they delivered up the whole people to Edom, and remembered not the brotherly covenant:10but I will send a fire on the wall of Tyre, and it shall devour the palaces thereof.

Amos 1, 3-7

The destruction of Damascus is directly related to the threshing of Gilead.

The name of the first kidnapped soldier that was taken captive by Palestinian terrorist groups to Gaza is Gilead Shalit!

Verse 6 addresses that. God sends fire to Gaza because they “carried captive the whole people”. As you know, for Israel, when one of its soldiers or citizens is taken captive is like the whole people was taken captive and everything is done to secure his/their release.

There is also a connection between Tyre and the captivity. Tyre is a city in Lebanon and two Israeli soldiers were taken captive by hezbollah to Lebanon. By this, hezbollah delivered up the whole people of Israel to those who ordered the kidnapping!

Here is the probable meaning: the destruction of Damascus happens at the time when there is fire in Gaza because of the captivity of the whole people, the threashing of Gilead and also at the time when there is fire in Tyre. As you know, Israel has been bombarding targets in Tyre in the past few days.

“23 Of Damascus. Hamath is confounded, and Arpad; for they have heard evil tidings, they are melted away: there is sorrow on the sea; it cannot be quiet.
24 Damascus is waxed feeble, she turneth herself to flee, and trembling hath seized on her: anguish and sorrows have taken hold of her, as of a woman in travail.
25 How is the city of praise not forsaken, the city of my joy?
26 Therefore her young men shall fall in her streets, and all the men of war shall be brought to silence in that day, saith Jehovah of hosts.
27 And I will kindle a fire in the wall of Damascus, and it shall devour the palaces of Ben-hadad.”

Jeremiah 49, 23-27

The first verse refers to the anguish of the citizens of Hamath and Arpad, two syrian cities, after hearing the news about the destruction of Damascus. Verse 26 seems to indicate that the destruction occurs in a single day.

Now let’s go to Bible codes.

Here are the matrixes about the August 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th of 2006, Syria, world war, Lebanon and atomic holocaust and 2006:

If the destruction of Damascus occurs on August 3rd 2006 and Israel suffers a massive attack on August 2nd 2006, I believe some Bible verses with the numbers of those dates would/will apply to those events.

This means that verses of Chapter 8, 2 and Chapter 8, 3 of some books of the Bible, would/will correspond or could be related to the events of 8/2/2006 and 8/3/2006.

As an example here are two Bible verses that can be related to the attacks on 9/11:

“As for Ephraim, their glory shall fly away like a bird, from the birth, and from the womb, and from the conception.”